John Holland and Eddie Blake are charged with animal cruelty-related offences and are scheduled to appear in court July 29.

Coulter says the charges come after a five-month investigation.

“This is definitely one of the largest we’ve dealt with in years,” she said.

“We’ve talked to some of our officers who have been around for a long time and they remember a similar one in terms of a large-scale farm investigation back in the late ’80s early ’90s but definitely since then this is pretty unusual.”

She said many of the animals had been dead for some time.

“The remaining animals on the property were significantly lacking in food and many of them were in an advanced stage of starvation. Others were clearly under-nourished.”